Reusing items on digitalnz and copyright

Your responsibilities

Before downloading, copying or reusing any item found through DigitalNZ, you need to examine the terms of use and/or copyright statement on the content partner's web page. This will let you know if:

  • you can copy and share the object

  • you can modify the object

  • you can use the object commercially

  • you need to license new creations under identical terms

  • the original creator has specific requirements about how they should be credited

Attribution

In most circumstances you'll need to reference the material you're using, by attributing the title, author, linking to source material and the licence used. It's your responsibility to check the content owner's licensing, but in many circumstances this simple example from Creative Commons of basic attribution can suffice: Title, author, link to source e.g. Hat; Unknown; http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/56539; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz/deed.en

Using the Usage Rights Filter

To help find material that may be suitable for reuse, the Usage Rights filter provides a general guide. After performing a search, select one of the filters (such as Share, Modify, Use Commercially) to show objects from your results that may be suitable for your purposes:

Share

Filter by Share to show results that may be suitable for copying and sharing with others in some way, without further permission. You normally need to credit the creator or owner, and you should always check the content partner's website to confirm the specific terms of use.

Modify

Filter by Modify to show results that may be suitable for modifying, remixing and building upon, without further permission. You normally need to credit the creator or owner, and you should always check the content partner's website to confirm the specific terms of use.

Use commercially

Filter by Use commercially to show results that may be suitable for commercial use, without further permission. You normally need to credit the creator or owner, and you should always check the content partner's website to confirm the specific terms of use.

All rights reserved

These results may only be suitable for the purpose of "fair dealing" under the Copyright Act, unless permission is granted by the creator or copyright owner. You can examine the licence/copyright status of each object on the content partners webpage to determine how to ask permission. Often, All Rights Reserved items are not permitted to be re-used, shared or re-published.

Unknown

There are many other items from content partners where the usage rights are unknown. These results may only be suitable for the purpose of "fair dealing" under the Copyright Act, unless you can establish they are not in copyright. It may be that unknown material is suitable for sharing, modification and commercial use but you will need to check the object's specific terms of use, and may need to undertake research to find the creator and publisher of each object to determine this.

Further guidance